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Pat navigated through the crowd of grid workers, past mechanics, media, and VIPs, all headed in different directions. He still couldn't understand how his brother managed the fame, the noise. All Oscar ever wanted as a boy was to drive cars fast — none of the other stuff mattered, and he'd never truly been ready for the spectacle, if they were honest. But more than that, Pat didn't know how Oscar walked into these circuits week after week, knowing any day could be deadly.
He'd seen enough career-ending accidents on TV over all the years he'd been following Oscar around the world. He'd always been lucky — they'd always been lucky — that Oscar was never really on the receiving end of it. And whenever Oscar returned to Australia or England (where Pat's now-boyfriend, Ben, lived and refused to move away, the stubborn thing) for a race, Pat always made sure he was there in person. Standing in the crowd. Cheering loudly enough to embarrass them both.
But today was different.
For the second consecutive time, Pat had to watch Oscar and his car crash in front of the Melbourne home crowd. And the worst part of it all? There was absolutely nothing Pat could have done about it. Not last year, when Oscar's car skidded into the grass, and not this year, when the new regulations made Oscar lose control.
At least last year, the circumstances were different. Last year, everyone saw Oscar pull himself out of the mess and keep going, a testament to the perseverance and grit that Pat had witnessed for more than two decades. Last year, the rest of the world cheered for Oscar so loudly that it hardly mattered who wasn't cheering for him anymore.
This year, Oscar's race ended before it even began: a crash during the reconnaissance lap. This year, Oscar's failure felt so final that the impact had actually left a mark on the wall. This year, Pat had to watch his younger brother, head bowed low, helmet still on, make that sad walk back to the McLaren garage, too ashamed to look anyone in the eye.
But Pat wasn't just "anyone."
He pushed through the last crowd of people, scanning desperately for a head wearing Aussie green-and-gold amidst the sea of papaya orange. The garage was chaos: engineers shouting, data analysts hunched over screens, someone already pulling up crash replays on a monitor. No one noticed him. No one tried to stop him.
And then he saw Oscar.
He was tucked into a corner near the back of the garage, half-hidden behind a stack of tyre blankets. His helmet sat on a workbench beside him, replaced by a cap, and his race suit was unzipped to the waist, hanging limply around his hips. He was staring at the floor, shoulders hunched, hands dangling uselessly between his knees.
Pat's heart cracked clean in two.
He crossed the garage in twelve strides, and Oscar didn't look up until Pat's shoes appeared in his peripheral vision. When he finally did, his face did something complicated: a flicker of surprise, followed by shame, and then something raw and youthful that Pat hadn't seen since Oscar was fifteen and petrified of boarding school.
"Pat." Oscar's voice came out rough. "You shouldn't be back here. They won't let —"
"Don't." Pat lowered himself onto the workbench beside his brother, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. "Don't do that. Don't push me away."
Oscar's jaw clenched as he looked back at the floor.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The chaos of the garage persisted around them — urgent voices, radios crackling with updates for Lando, the distant roar of engines still on track — but in their small corner, only silence remained.
"She just... she just snapped," Oscar said finally. His voice was quiet, flat. "The car. I didn't do anything different. I took the same line I always take on that turn. And she just —" He made a gesture with his hand, sharp and final. "Into the wall. Before we even bloody started."
Pat remained silent. He simply waited.
"I could feel it going." The tremor beneath the words was faint but undeniable. "A split second before impact. I knew what was coming, and I couldn't — there was nothing I could do. Just sit there and wait for it to happen." He exhaled a breath almost like a laugh, but not quite. "Again."
"Osc —"
"Do you know what that's like?" Oscar's head lifted, and Pat finally saw his eyes properly. They were too bright, rimmed with red, the kind of bright that came right before tears, the kind he was fighting with everything he had. "To know you're about to crash and just have to... wait for it? To feel the car go and know there's not a single thing you can do to stop it?"
Pat's throat tightened. "No," he said softly. "I don't. But I know what it's like to watch it happen. Twice. From the stands." He paused. "I don't recommend it."
Oscar's mouth twitched, just slightly. But Pat noticed it.
"Last year," Pat continued, "you drove your car back on the track as if you'd just gone for a Sunday drive. The entire country lost its mind. Everyone was talking about the kid who didn't give up."
“Last year, I actually got to race.”
"This year you didn't." Pat met his brother's eyes. "And that's shit. It's absolutely shit. You have every right to be angry, upset, and whatever else you're feeling right now. But Oscar —" He reached out and placed a hand on Oscar's shoulder, as he'd done a thousand times before, in a thousand different moments. "This doesn't change who you are. It doesn't change what you've done. It doesn't change the fact that you're one of the best drivers in the world, and next week, you're going to get back in that car and prove it again."
Oscar's breath hitched. Just once. He quickly covered it, looking away, but not before Pat saw his eyes welling with tears. "I'm supposed to be better than this," Oscar mumbled. "I'm supposed to be able to handle it. I'm a Formula 1 driver, for fuck’s sake. I shouldn't be sitting here crying like a —"
“Like a human being?" Pat interrupted gently. "Like someone who just survived a high-speed crash in front of a hundred thousand people and is allowed to have feelings about it?" He squeezed Oscar's shoulder. "Mate, if you didn't feel something after that, I'd be worried.”
Oscar was silent for a moment. Then, so faintly that Pat almost missed it: "I thought it was going to be different this year."
"I know."
"I worked so hard. I did everything they asked. I was ready."
"I know."
"And it just —" Oscar's voice cracked. "It just didn't matter."
Pat did what he'd always done when words weren't enough: he pulled Oscar into a hug.
Oscar went rigid for half a second — the instinctive resistance of someone who'd learned young that showing weakness meant exposing oneself — then he crumpled. His forehead dropped onto Pat's shoulder, and his entire body trembled with the effort of holding it together.
"It matters," Pat murmured against the top of his head. "It all matters. The work, the sacrifice, the everything. It matters because you did it. Because you're here. Because you're still you, and that's —" His voice caught. "That's everything, Osc. That's the whole point."
Oscar didn't reply. But his hands rose and grasped the back of Pat's jacket, hanging on as if he was scared of being swept away.
They remained in that position for a long time. The garage noise gradually faded into background static. Someone walked past and quickly averted their gaze. A radio crackled with updates about the race restart. None of it mattered.
Eventually, Oscar's grip loosened. He pulled back just enough to look at Pat, his eyes wet but his jaw clenched. "I'm gonna be okay," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I know." Pat smiled, even though his own eyes were stinging. "You're a Piastri. You don't know how to not be okay."
Oscar let out a wet laugh. "That's Cummins, actually. I'm a Piastri, you're a Cummins, remember? That’s you!"
"Details." Pat waved a hand. "The point remains."
For the first time since the crash, Oscar's smile lit up his eyes.
Pat stood, offering his brother a hand. Oscar took it, allowing himself to be pulled upright. His race suit still hung open, his cap was now askew, and there were tear tracks on his cheeks that he hadn't bothered to wipe away.
He looked terrible.
He looked perfect.
“Ben's going to kill me for not bringing you home right away," Pat said, reaching out to adjust Oscar’s cap. "You know how he gets. 'Tell Oscar I said hi, tell Oscar I'm proud of him, tell Oscar I made his favourite dinner.'" He pitched his voice into a dreadful impression of Ben's British accent. "The man's obsessed with you."
Oscar snorted. "That’s because he was my PE teacher… He's not obsessed, he's just —" He paused, a mischievous glint appearing in his eyes despite everything. "Actually, no, he's definitely obsessed. With you. It's gross."
"Oi!"
"I'm just saying. Twenty minutes last night on the phone. I heard everything."
“You were meant to be asleep!”
"I was. You two woke me up."
Pat opened his mouth to protest, but closed it when he saw Oscar smiling — a real smile, small but genuine — and that was worth any amount of embarrassment.
"Come on," Pat said, slinging an arm around his brother's shoulders. "Let's get out of here. Ben's waiting for your call back home, and he’s told me to make you your favourite dinner, but I'm not allowed to eat any of it until you're fully fed."
Oscar leaned into him, just a little, the way he'd done since he was small. "You can have some."
“Generous.”
"I know."
They stepped out of the garage together, past the chaos, the screens, and replays of a crash that no longer mattered. The sun still shone over Melbourne. The crowd continued to cheer for someone else's victory.
And Oscar Piastri, who had just crashed out of his home race before it even started, walked out with his head held high.
Pat squeezed his shoulder once, twice, a thousand times.
That's my brother, he thought. That's always been my brother.